Timeline: History of Crime Scene Investigations

300

First Foresic

Fingerprints are used on clay tablets

750

First Lie Detector

Erasistratus, an ancient Greek physician, discovers that his patients’ pulse rates increase when they are telling lies, which led to the first lie detector test.

1235

Learning to find murder weapons

A murder was committed using a sickle. All those in the village who owned a sickle were made to bring them out and lay them in the sun. Eventually flies gathered on one particular sickle, identifying it as the murder weapon.

1786

Using physical matching

John Toms of Lancaster is convicted of murder on the basis of a torn wad of paper found in a pistol matching a remaining piece in his pocket. One of the first documented uses of physical matching.

1835

Bullet comparison

Henry Goddard first uses bullet comparison to catch a murderer. The comparison was based in a visible flaw in the bullet, traced back to a mold.

1864

Photographing evidence

First advocation of the use of photography for the identification of criminals and the documentation of evidence and crime scenes.

1880

Using Fingerprints to determine Crime

Henry Faulds of Scotland publishes a paper suggesting fingerprints at the scene of a crime could identify the offender. Faulds uses fingerprints to eliminate an innocent suspect and indicate a perpetrator in a Tokyo burglary.

1932